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polysyndetonaddictsupportgroup · 13 days ago

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did every hero really follow endeavor's plan during the jail break? I've never watched bnha, but I always figured there were more heros then Japan knew what do with. Was endeavor really just that worried about how the fight again AFO would go? and did AFO have the league with him? or other prison escapees? Given eraserhead was so entrenched?

As a preliminary matter--yes, it was way more than AfO. The League basically did what they did during the USJ arc and subcontracted their violent attacks. They needed a big force to first get AfO and everyone else out of Tartarus, and then they made it very clear (via loudspeaker and also fucking tweet) that they would all be very peacefully retreating while all those criminally insane and violent motherfuckers went that other direction. Ball's in your court as to how you want to tackle it.

AfO was the biggest threat, by fucking far, but it was far from isolated to him. It was the entire League of Villains + Their Very Special Friends. It was the kind of force that would be required to make the entirety of Tartarus fall for the first time in history. So the heroes had plenty to keep them busy.

And as to whether Endeavor was that scared about the next fight with AfO... Yeah.

I think bnha does a good job at establishing that All Might and AfO just exist at entirely different levels than every other person alive. Their fight leveled a decent chunk of Kamino. And I think that's kind of power and devastation is hard to conceptualize as like, people in a world where we don't have to worry about superhero fights. (as a side note--Sukuna's Big Fight in the Shibuya arc from JJK did better than any other fight in media to really capture the sheer cosmic horror of being caught as a bystander in one of those fights).

But endeavor saw it. He was there for AfO’s and All Might’s last fight. The gods were fighting. Everyone else was just an ant.

He is facing the villain that ultimately took down All Might. All Might won Kamino, sure. But he didn't get up again after. He was permanently and irreversibly taken out of play. And Endeavor has spent the last year feeling like he was struggling to be even half of what All Might was with two hours of productivity a day. He was so consistently voted to not be able to compare to All Might that he bought a wife and had four kids about it, all of whom hate him actively.

He does not think he is winning this fight. He is Japan's number one hero. The responsibility is going to fall to Midoriya Izuku to him. He is the best they have left, and the fight that would be coming was one that already nearly killed All Might, the one guy he has never ever been able to compare to. And when he really looked himself in the mirror and asked if he could stop AfO, the answer was no.

And it wouldn't just be AfO if he came back to power. It would be his followers--and he was liable to get more than just the current League of Villains roster. It would mean more Nomus. They could barely handle one Nomu--how could they possibly handle the Nomus, and the LoV, and AfO?

And the answer that he came to was that they couldn't. Not without All Might.

He thought he was sacrificing Yokohama for every single other city AfO was going to level if he had time to grow in strength again. He thought that if they threw absolutely everything they had at him while he was weak, then maybe they could contain him and the League before entire cities fell.

So. That's why he came to that decision. Why did every hero fall into line?

So what’s key to what happened here was it was this complete structural breakdown at exactly the wrong time.

Structural Flaw #1: Transportation

Was it every hero in Japan that responded to Endeavor’s order? No. But not every hero in Japan was available. Any heroes out of the immediate area were too far away to do shit.

But it's a massive crisis. Heroes would commute from all over if they could--but it's not about desire, it's about time and resources. With how imminently emergent the threat was, a lot of far-away heroes would need something like a jet to even conceivably get there in time.

Who is sending the jet?

Let's pin down what heroes could, conceivably, get there in time. Very few heroes are in walking distance. How do heroes typically get from Point A to Point B?

Hero society in bnha is an agency model. There is no communal pool of resources--you have what your agency has. You have a jet to transport you if your agency has the money for one, and I’m pretty sure only all might had that (he has since had it dismantled and the parts repurposed for the sake of the environment. He only had it to begin with so he could quickly respond to imminent threats. All Might thinks there's more than one way to save the world and saving the environment is part of it). Like. We even saw Endeavor flying fucking commercial.

But let's just assume, arguendo, that some agencies have jets. It would have to be the very top agencies to possibly afford it.

All of whom are shown in canon to mostly operate out of the same area. So they're going to have to send the jet somewhere else to get more heroes. Now any travel time is doubled. If they do send it out, how many people are they realistically getting? Are these heroes in multiple different cities? That's more travel time then. Maybe we just land the plane in Kyoto and whoever gets on in the twenty minute period while they're refueling is who is coming back. We'll hand them parachutes and kick them out the plane door over Yokohama. Okay. Good plan. Go team.

Who is sending the jet?

Like, who is physically making the call to send the jet? Who do they call? Do they just start ringing around their buddies and seeing if they have other plans? The city is on fucking fire and we need people fighting now, so the big name heroes don't have time to organize transport with other agencies. They’re not even thinking of that right now. Make it a sidekick's job.

They are all on fucking strike.

Fuck it. Fine. Make it an admin's job. There has to be some kind of office staff who can work a telephone who's available.

Who is thinking to send the jet?

Admins are not making strategic calls about where the company jets go. There would have to be some kind of protocol in place or someone with the authority to send the jet would have to think of it in the moment. And I guarantee you this would not be the case.

Because this is a society where they have canonically semi-privatized public safety and put people in direct competition with each other over it.

ASIDE: The Economic Structure of Heroics and Why It Sucks

I have an economic structure. You must listen to it. I promise it is relevant. This is why it takes me forever to do things it's because i get too deep into the weeds and have to explain the fucking economic structures underpinning the analysis for my nonsense to make sense.

How the fuck do heroes get paid?

I have no idea if canon ever tells us because to be so for real with you guys I have not watched this show in years. I haven’t cared about canon since the Shie Hassaikai arc. The fucking YouTuber arc broke me. I literally never watched it again. If they ever explain to us how heroes get paid I do not know and I do not care. I refuse to go back to canon. Everything I found out about canon after the Shie Hassaikai arc, I learned against my will. The ending to this story was so fucking stupid and I only have a scattered knowledge of the details but I’m still right. If canon ever tries to explain it then please do not tell me, I refuse to learn more things about this show.

But I still like poking around the potential economic structures based on the part of canon that doesn’t cause me psychic damage. So here’s the thought process for the economic underpinnings of hero society in the pez universe.

From canon, we know it can be an enormously lucrative profession, we know that it involves some degree of private interests (re: merch lines), and we know that there are some people who cannot have merch lines (Underground Heroes, e.g. Eraserhead), so there also must be some kind of public funding aspect to it as well. So. Who the fuck signs your paycheck?

Sources of Funding

a. Public Funding

There must be some kind of official governmental budget for heroics. Like. They are very much a public service. There would be no way to have a fully private heroics force without government funding. What else are you supposed to do, fucking Venmo heroes after they save you? Do they put your kitten back in the tree if you don’t have enough.

In my mind, there's public funds allocated to heroes as part of a city's budget. That funding is allotted based on the number of employees in a given entity balanced against the confirmed acts of heroics of that same given entity. There’s a base salary level and that can be increased based on how successful you are, but salary isn’t exclusively what this fund is for. The heroic entity (an individual hero or an Agency) is effectively receiving grant money from the government to run their agency. You put it into salaries, gear, office space, everything. The government is basically investing in heroes, and it’s investing more in heroes who are shown to have a greater positive impact on society.

It involves overly complex calculations regarding the scaled difficulty of a given bust/rescue/act and ranking of the villain (if there is one) and the overall public benefit for the service rendered. You get bonuses for having a lower average property damage, for contributing to community building projects, that kind of thing. It is Complex. There is a lot of paperwork that has to be submitted to strange and vaguely threatening government accountants. When Mirio and Izuku start their agency, they will burst into tears multiple times trying to figure it out once filing season rolls around, bundle all the paperwork in a Massive Tears And Shame Package, mail it off to the shadowy powers at be, and then get a perfunctory notice that they are getting a ludicrous amount of the city budget allotted to their dinky little agency for the upcoming fiscal year because they are Big Fucking Heroes and enormously good at what they do and it reflects in their stats. They will then lay on the ground of their haunted fucking office and stare at the ceiling for a very long period of time.

But this puts the heroes in competition with each other. Your public funding is chained to your stats under this model. There's only so many criminals out there--you've got to get the right numbers or it cuts into how much of a slush fund the agency is working with.

It's sort of an insane model for a public servant position, but I think it matches with what canon shows us. Imagine having firefighters pitted against each other. like, having a competitive model for public safety raises extreme concerns about how it incentivizes public servants to act.

But this isn't canon's model. It's my guess as to how canon works based on the hints i can remember and my own mental illness. So why do I think canon suggests a model like this?

It's because 1) canon does establish that heroes are in competition with one another and 2) this kind of model would likely be necessary due to the level of autonomy that heroes have.

The literal first fight we see involves heroes in competition with each other. Kamui Woods is doing a big Ultimate Move, and Mount Lady rushes in and steals the show. Like. that is crazy behavior if we are looking at this through the lens of a typical public servant. Imagine you're trying to get directions from a park ranger and a different park ranger kick flips in with a map and a desperate need for you to get your directions from them instead. You call poison control and they’re beating each other in the head over who gets to tell you you’re dying.

Still, on its own, the competition isn’t dispositive, because the private income streams (we'll get there) would incentivize competition even if public funding wasn't based on it. But the level of autonomy that hero offices exhibit also suggest some kind of competition model.

Heroics agencies are not run like a typical police force or fire station. With most entities that function as first responders, they respond to some kind of centralized force (like 911 call centers) and they have highly regulated resource distribution. Like, police forces are restricted to a specific jurisdiction. Within that jurisdiction they have multiple districts and officers typically stay in their district. They're not going to a different fucking city because they think the crime is cooler there.

But Endeavor does exactly that. He's like "hello, son who hates me. Let's go to Hosu because I want to fuck with the hero killer for street cred. won't you come along. It is non-optional" and todoroki says "i hate you father and will abandon you on our father son trip to set a serial killer on fire with my mind. it will be for mildly gay reasons."

These agencies aren't a centralized public service. They are all just off doing their own thing. They're not responding to specific areas as allotted to them by the city--they just fuck off and do whatever. Like, there's probably some coordination between agencies as to who is covering what patrol, but it likely would be more out of courtesy than formal requirement. People wouldn't step on each other's toes nearly as much if there was more of a structure to this.

Typical public agencies who receive funding in accordance with staffing and budgetary needs have more structure and formality than is exhibited in canon. Heroics Agencies act like they're all independent contractors. They probably function like grant money recipients, where they're all fighting for the same pool of funds. You have to write in and show why you deserve that money when that's the case. They're in competition with each other.

Like, is this definitively the structure in canon? No, of course not. I have no fucking idea what, if anything, canon has going on. But it definitely fits with canon.

b. Private Income Streams

We know from canon that it can't just be public funding. Izuku alone probably paid for the Mighty Agency private jet with how much fucking all might merch he bought. Canonically, heroes have merchandise lines, branding deals, commercials, everything. All Might had fucking movies made about him. Those are all extremely lucrative income streams--and likely where the richest heroes get the biggest brunt of their income.

In order to get this kind of income, you are necessarily in competition with your fellow hero.

Public attention, spending money, screen time, all of it--it's a limited resource. You have to be the person who gets to the fight first, who does the big move, who saves the day. If it's someone else? Then that's another kid buying their action figure instead of yours. Heroics is heavily commoditized in canon, and that inherently invites competition.

2. Distribution of Funds

So now that we have a theory as to where the money comes from, how does it get paid out? Based on canon, it comes down to a structure of (a) Independent/Underground Heroes and (b) Agencies.

a. Independent/Underground Heroes

I can't actually remember if the word "independent" is said in canon or if I came up with it, but I think canon implies its existence. It's basically the same thing as being an underground hero, but you're still a Spotlight hero. I also cannot remember if the underground/spotlight thing is canon or fanon or what I’m sorry I haven’t watched this show in years.

Independents are spotlight heroes without the backing of an agency. They just go out every day with the clothes on their back and a dream. They have no support staff, no back up, and no one to help them if things go sideways.

It is not a popular employment option.

Part of it is because it's that much harder to fund being an independent. Like. Say you're just out of high school and you decide to strike out on your own as independent. You're still spotlight, so you can have a merchandise line, and that'd be a nice income stream while you're just starting out.

How the fuck do you start your own t-shirt line?

How do you make contracts with the manufacturers? How do you make and copyright the design? how do you sell the stupid things? Do you try and get them in Walmart? Do you start an Etsy? Your own website? do you call your mom and cry when you have 500 ugly t-shirts with your face on them that no one wants to buy and they're taking up all the space in your studio apartment.

Agencies have preexisting structures in place to help launch these kinds of options, which is one of the reasons why they're so attractive for baby heroes just starting out. The only reason why Mirio has merchandise is because he decided that he didn't care and didn't need to make merch and Izuku came after him with feverish crack addict energy because he cared and he needed Lemillion merch like. yesterday. All Might ended up getting his agency to start a lemillion line. Mirio gets the profits with a reasonable fee to the Mighty Agency. To this day he suspects that Izuku is 70% of his sales but Izuku denies this fervently, like a liar (he actually has a small but very devoted fanbase who rabidly support him and buy all of his merch. he would cry if he knew this. Still. Izuku is his biggest fan and buys literally every single piece of new merch in triplicate.).

Underground heroes are in the same boat as independents but they don't even have the option of a merch line. They exclusively get public funding unless they're backed by an agency, which none of them are because agencies have a tendency to fuck them and their busts for the sake of the spotlight. All underground heroes are bitter and culturally opposed to agencies.

On that note:

b. Agencies.

This is where by far the most heroes would end up. But an agency is like thirty dudes with the same joint bank account. How does the money get there and get distributed out?

i. Public Funding in an Agency Context

Take the above model. How do you attribute public funds based on personal statistics if there's no single person? Does everyone get their own check? But that wouldn't make sense--this isn't just for salaries, it's for funding the actual heroics itself.

Everyone under the same agency would be counted together for the purposes of funding allotment. If Sidekick A managed 300 busts last year and Sidekick B man managed 350 busts, then congratulations, The Big Hero Hero Agency made 650 busts last year, here's a check made out to the agency, figure out what you want to do with it.

But what about incidents that involve multiple heroes from the same agency? Let's say that The Big Hero Hero Agency is involved in a big bust. It is Sidekick A's baby. They have spent months doing this. This has been blood, sweat, and tears. When the day comes, they are joined by Sidekick B, Sidekick C, and Big Hero himself. Sidekick B has been helping Sidekick A for the past three weeks on this case. Sidekick C got called in the day-of to help.

Big Hero showed up for the last twenty minutes of the fight when they were mostly done with everything.

So. You're filling out the post-arrest paperwork. For funding and for public statistics, you need to make sure to properly account for who gets credit for the bust. It has to be one person--if you had everyone individually credit themselves for the bust, then it looks like you've resolved four incidents instead of one under this financial model. it's artificially inflating your numbers for public funding. that's fraud. Who should get the credit: Sidekick A, Sidekick B, Sidekick C, or Big Hero?

Well, there's nothing stopping Big Hero from writing their own name. So let's go with Big Hero. He helped.

This was one of the big sources of the sidekick strikes: a lot of agencies had an absolute policy of attributing successes to the name hero if they touched the case at all, because there was no rule against it. It was better for the agency, after all--unrealistically high numbers on the biggest name meant the agency as a whole appeared more successful.

So there were a lot of heroes artificially inflating their stats with things that were more properly credited to their sidekicks. Which made it all the harder for sidekicks to leave because their stats were shit because their boss was taking credit for their work.

ii. Private Funding in an Agency Context

But that’s just public funding. How would agencies distribute private income streams?

Big Hero Agency is proud to announce its newest line of Big Hero Action Figures, featuring the Entire Big Hero Team, now retailing for $39.99. Get it now from a store near you.

So. An agency is selling an action figure line featuring Sidekicks A, B, and C, as well as Big Hero himself. We’ll round up to an even $40. How do we split up the cash?

You can’t give everyone each $10. You have to first pay the suppliers, the advertisers, the trucks that shipped the toys to the store, etc. Then you have to pay back into the agency to fund miscellaneous expenses—the stationary, the insurance, the coffee in the fucking break room. Everything. By the end, there’s only $4 of profit left over. Not great, but hey—they’re selling a lot of toys. So if they each get a $1, then it should add up quick.

Right. But. If you think about it, people are only really buying it for Big Hero. He’s the best hero of all of them—his name is on the agency, and just look at how much higher his stats are. So it’s only fair that he gets $3.70 a toy and the rest of them can get $.10 apiece. Don’t worry, it’ll add up quick.

Not all agencies would have been like this. But a lot of them would be. Money is a hell if an incentive to screw people.

END OF ASIDE.

With all that in mind—why would they feasibly have a structure to fly in help from other heroes far away? That’s their fucking competition. Sure, we have team ups, but they’re all either well in advance or in the heat of a moment. If they are in the heat of a moment, half the time the heroes resent it because they just stole their fight. They’re gonna what—pay the exorbitant jet fees to fly in someone who’s just going to steal their hard work in the eyes of the public?

Okay, but what about situations like this? Massive emergencies where you need more people?

Those haven’t ever happened before. They had All Might.

So. The heroes on the ground calling in help are out. What about the heroes who are close enough to make it there by ground transport? No one calls them, they just show up out of public need. How are they getting there?

Trains are out. All the trains into the area are shut the fuck down. We are not giving the freshly escaped villains a bullet train to the rest of the country. Same thing for buses. No fucking bus driver is making their regular route into a fucking battleground.

Private transportation it is. Anything more than a few hours out of the area is completely out of the question. Like, good ol’ Manuel from Hosu City and all his buddies? Not making it. The wild wild pussycats? Watched this on TV from their mountain home. Gran Torino? On FaceTime with All Might, who is watching the fight with Midoriya Inko’s hand gripped in his left and Bakugou Mitsuki’s hand gripped in his right. Gang Orca? Twelve hours away and on a fucking island so he needs a boat AND a car to get there. Or he just fucking swims.

But there has to be at least some hero that saw this happening and heroically climbed in their Mazda sedan to make the three hour car trip. Why didn’t they go to the fight in Yokohama instead of the one against AfO?

Frankly at that point those literal children were visibly doing way better than the actual heroes were faring and any heroes showing up went where they were most needed and uh. It wasn’t by the kids.

If we have the agency model as given to us by canon, then that means there is a decentralization of resources. If you want to utilize your public defense force in the case of emergencies, then you need a way to fucking get them to the emergency. Canon does not have that. This is a huge structural failing that only wasn’t a disaster sooner because most emergencies required one guy and he had his own private jet. So most heroes in the country never had to even consider if they would listen to Endeavor’s order because they were completely cut off and useless at the time.

So. Now the analysis has been narrowed from all of Japan’s heroes to just the ones in the immediate vicinity of the fight. That’s still a fuck ton of heroes. This is a heavily populated area with a bunch of heroes around. You can’t go outside without tripping over a hero.

Most of those guys were on fucking strike.

Structural Flaw #2: Over-Reliance on and Abuse of Sidekicks.

The vast majority of the workforce had to be sidekicks. Like, just from a business model perspective. Even the smallest agencies we saw had 2-3 sidekicks. Endeavor’s agency had at least double digits, and I think Idaten was at over a hundred or something. We were probably looking at, conservatively, a 1:10 ratio of heroes to sidekicks.

All those guys are on strike.

Okay. But not all of them, right? Idaten already settled and got their sidekicks back. That’s like a hundred guys.

Except the Strike was not isolated to the Tokyo/Mustufasa/Yokohama area. Idaten sent out a lot of their sidekicks to other regions to help alleviate some of the strains of the strike. (As a note, this was not the Idaten sidekicks crossing the picket line. Them picking up the slack for other sidekicks still striking would have helped minimize effects on the public. However, the agencies of the striking sidekicks would have reaped no benefit from this under the compensation structure outlined above. Idaten would have gotten the credit for everything their sidekicks did, so the other agencies would still be bleeding from this while risk to the public was slightly alleviated. Idaten’s entire function in this strike was to set an example for quick settlement and minimize public harm. There’s this entire sub-analysis on Idaten’s internal culture and how it intersects with broader heroics standards that I won’t get into now this is already way too long.)

Idaten is at 1/10 capacity. It has like, ten guys, all of whom have been working say, thirteen hour shifts (voluntarily—again, it was a decision made to try and minimize the public safety risks of the strike while still allowing their colleagues their best chance at improved conditions) daily for the past month.

All of those ten guys responded to Tartarus before Endeavor made the call.

To understand the exact nature of the breakdown, you really have to see the chaos of how exactly this unfolded.

The LoV and their merry band of criminals hit Tartarus. The heroes do not realize at this time that they intend to let everyone out, give them transportation, and point them straight towards the mainland. They think that they’re just there for AfO. That’s still a huge crisis that needs to be shut down immediately, so they call out all of their best. Endeavor responds. Hawks responds. Eraserhead responds. Mt. Lady, Kamui Woods, Miruko—everyone in the vicinity who could conceivably respond show up. For a second, it looks like it’s going to end here.

Once the LoV get AfO out of his cell, the entire tide of the battle turns against the heroes. Now everyone’s out. All of those horrible, terrible villains. Tartarus has fallen. They have to make hard decisions. The high ranking, very powerful heroes who are most likely to break the line on Endeavor’s decision? They’re already at the fight by the time he has to make it. It is chaos and something they cannot easily leave.

The LoV’s picked right now because they knew that the heroes were operating at less than a tenth of their regular capacity. They picked right now because they knew the system had structural faults, and if they hit them just right, it would all come down on the heroes’ heads.

But the sidekicks broke strike lines to respond, right? Why do they all go to endeavor’s side?

For one thing, it wasn’t all of them who showed up—maybe a third of them were not even in the area any more. It wasn’t malicious, or intentional, or anything like that—they were off visiting their families for the first time in a long time or taking vacation. All of them had spent the past few years being completely overworked and abused by their jobs. They just weren’t there.

So now we’re down to 2/3rds of them who can even try to show up.

A lot of it wasn’t actually made as a reasoned choice. For many of them, they ended up where they did because of all the chaos.

So you’re a sidekick. You’re on strike. The entire world has gone to shit. How do you normally find out about the world going to shit?

This is a competition model streamed through individual entities. There’s no central command structure. Your agency calls you.

Well, your agency either fucking fired you or they cut you off completely during strike negotiations. This time, you find out through the news when the story breaks. Now what?

You frantically try to get in touch with your (ex) agency. Who is picking up the phones?

No one. That was your fucking job before you went on strike.

I used to work at a government public-service type deal, and let me tell you, they abuse the fuck out of non-unionized workers. You are doing everyone’s job. No one ask why we don’t get more support staff because they have unions. Like. I had a law degree. I was hired to be a lawyer in that office. They had us all doing the jobs of four people, and by that I mean it would be the literal entire job description of another fucking position in that office and we were all expected to just do it too.

Unions incentivize treating workers right. The absence of them opens the door to the opposite.

Why the fuck would agencies hire more people to lighten the load on the sidekicks and let them focus on actual heroics? Just make the sidekicks do everything. What are they going do, complain? They’re a dime a dozen. Hire more of those fresh faced kids with no standards just out of school.

You know when you had a job where you’re like. This fucking place is going to fall apart without me. But they treat you as disposable and easily replaceable and you’re like “okay bet” and so you leave and you find out from the people left behind that it actually fucking fell apart without you and you’re just like :o

Yeah. So that happened.

There has been a massive break down in the function of heroics offices for the past month and change because the sidekicks were not there. They were the ones who actually did most of the day to day handling of the office. They were the ones coordinating transport and figuring out the actual mechanics of who would be deployed where in a crisis. All those things that would be super helpful now? Yeah, those guys aren’t there, and they’re locked out of the fucking offices and can’t get in to un-strike for the sake of societal crisis.

But they know where the fight is. It’s on the news. Why don’t they just show up?

Where’s their gear?

Who owns it?

Heroics support gear must be an enormously expensive thing. It would have to be provided by the agency itself. Literally the only reason why Mirio has gear is because 1) all might would NEVER let his pseudo step son run around without proper support so the man would have bankrolled it himself if needs must and 2) the UA support class has a stipend each year where they can make support gear for active heroes and those heroes get it for free in exchange for free advertising for the students trying to kick start their careers, so he is decked out in THE most experimental bullshit from Hatsume Mei Industries (I have this entire side plot where the support class this class year low key became a sort of religious cult haha not really it’s just a joke it’s not really a joke and power loader is afraid every single day when he comes to work he is afraid under the iron clad rule of Hatsume Mei’s weird girl energy and they all decided Mirio was the Tabula Rasa, a figure of prophecy, and I just cannot get into that right now it’s too long it’s too long already. But it’s so fun).

All those sidekicks on strike lost valuable time trying to get back into their agencies so they weren’t showing up to an S-class villain fight in their fucking jammies. Then, when some poor admins figured out what was going on and let some of them in, everyone was frantically gearing up and getting in whatever transport van they were pointed at. Some of them didn’t know they werent reporting to Yokohama until they were already at the other fight. There’s was so much chaos and confusion that very few people had a clear idea of what was happening.

With the sidekicks, some of them never made it, some of them just got in a van and went wherever it took them, and some of them chose to obey Endeavor’s orders. Some agreed with the decision. Some disagreed but deferred to his experience. With how the Sidekick Strike had left their infrastructure, very few sidekicks were able to respond fast enough to make any real difference.

Now for the last possible demographic: the heroes that weren’t on strike and weren’t initially deployed to the Tartarus Prison Break. Why didn’t any of them go to Yokohama?

Structural Flaw #3: All Might was that one kid doing the entire group project for like forty years and some of these people are having to be heroes for the very first time and realizing that they don’t actually want to risk their lives to save people they just sort of liked the idea of this job.

It may be a bit too specific to be a structural flaw but I’m counting it anyway.

So, just to give a bit of a recap: We consider every hero alive in Japan as a candidate for Endeavor’s order. The vast majority of them are too far away to do shit, and there’s no centralized transport network to get them there faster. Toss in those who are dealing with personal medical issues or are away on vacation or just can’t come for some reason or another, and you’ve lost most of the heroes in Japan as respondents. Probably ~80% of potential heroes are culled from this alone.

So we have, generously, 20% of Japan’s heroes left as potential people to respond. ~90% of those are sidekicks on strike. They’ve got hours before they make it to any fight, because of the aforementioned structural breakdowns.

Now we’re down to 2% of Japan’s total heroes.

Some of that 2% were first responders to the initial Tartarus prison break. All the big name heroes in the area. But there can’t be that many top heroes—so let’s say 0.2% of them were at the initial fight.

Now we only have the remaining 1.8% of heroes to analyze.

There have to be a percentage of those who agreed with Endeavor’s call as a tactical decision. If they show up to any fight, they’re going to be obeying his order.

So we only have the ones who disagreed with his call left to look at.

These are small-time heroes. All of the big names are already at the fight. So they are less likely to have flashy Quirks, be especially talented, or consider themselves to have an especially large effect in the grand scheme of things. They have likely spent their entire careers living in a world with All Might.

It has never actually been down to them.

Think of Uwabami. Momo did her work study with her.

Her hero outfit is a fucking evening gown. She spent the entire work study doing commercials and meeting with her fans. She explicitly invited the young heroes that she did because she thought they were cute enough to be in commercials with her.

Now, she’s had some good if minor moments helping rescue civilians. It’s not that she’s never saved anyone.

But all of the top heroes are already committed to the fight against AfO. The current Number One Hero just ordered all her colleagues to report there. And Yokohama has a lot of S-Class villains en route.

And what the fuck is she going to do to stop them? It’s just her. Half of those villains took All Might to stop the first time. She is not fucking all might.

Is this a hero likely to go to Yokohama completely on her own to fight *checks notes* literally the entire prison population minus one guy? The worst guy, albeit. But one guy.

These are all heroes who have never had to be the actual thing standing between society and destruction. There has always been someone more powerful or capable or heroic nearby. Until recently, there has always been all might.

This isn’t to malign them. A decent percentage of them are legitimately well meaning about being a hero. They do good. But when it came to the big, blowout fights, they have always, always, always been the heroes evacuating civilians in the background or performing rescue in the aftermath. It has never been them who had to stand up and do the fight itself.

Every single one of those villains represent a big, blowout fight. And this hero trying to decide if he’s going to obey Endeavor’s order? They are one guy. And they’re not sure if they could even beat one of those villains alone, let alone all.

The reason why no one disobeyed Endeavor’s order was because, frankly, at the end of the day, they did not want to die.

Endeavor’s order signaled to everyone that there was no guarantee anyone would show up to Yokohama. It actually put good odds to the opposite. If you decided “fuck that, I’m going to Yokohama” then you’d likely be doing it alone.

What Class 2-A did was considered a death sentence. People who didn’t know them and their bullshit were shocked that they all made it out alive. These were the worst villains their society had ever faced and it was all of them at once (minus that one guy).

The heroes who were in a position to disobey endeavor didn’t actually think it’d make a difference if they did. They’d just… lose.

Most if not all of these heroes made the decision to become heroes during all mights era of peace. Everything just had lower stakes. Crime was less frequent and less serious. The big fights always had someone there who could handle them, because All Might was there. They’d fight the odd mugger or purse snatcher and help put out fires and go home at the end of the night. They’re heroes. That doesn’t mean they’ve ever truly had to grapple with a life or death fight.

If they went to Yokohoma, they thought they’d die. So they might as well respond to a fight that has a chance. Even if they feel ashamed as they do it. Even if they think Endeavor made the wrong call and wanted to go to Yokohama instead. All Might wasn’t there anymore. And they were afraid.

But there is one thing that Class 2-A had going for them that gave them an advantage over these heroes. And that was the fact that they are all medically insane.

It’s that they were together.

It’s a decentralized heroics structure. If you have a large agency, you are necessarily a top hero because no one else would be able to get that many people to agree to work under them. So you’re already at Tartarus and this isn’t a decision you had to make.

Maybe you’re independent. Maybe you have a small agency with 2-3 people. There is no preexisting centralized line that you can use to try and gather more people to go to Yokohama with you. You’re stuck with your immediate colleagues and maybe a few other heroes you’re close enough with to have their number. You really don’t have time to try and ask around to see if anyone else wants to go to Yokohama instead—you need to pick a battle and get there yesterday.

What good is 2-3 people going to do in Yokohama? You’ll just get massacred and it won’t have made a difference. At least if you go to stop AfO, you’ll have a chance at doing something that mattered.

Maybe you disagree with Endeavor but you defer to his training and experience.

Maybe you don’t go at any fight at all. Maybe you’re afraid. Maybe you became a hero in a time where you had a symbol of peace, and you realize you can’t keep doing it in a time without one.

I think there’s a small subsection of heroes that quit in the aftermath of Yokohama. Because they wanted to disobey endeavor’s order, and they thought they’d just die and it wouldn’t matter, and then dawn came and a bunch of school kids had managed what they were too big of a coward to do. I think the fact that they fell into line when their hearts told them they shouldn’t made them seriously doubt whether they were good enough to be a hero.

But they were alone when Endeavor made the call. And it felt like certain death. And—yeah, it sort of felt that way to Class 2-A when they made the decision to respond. But they weren’t alone when they did it.

They were together. And they always felt braver when they were together. Together, they could make miracles happen.

#pez dispenser debris #me with fictional worlds: where is your city planner I just want to talk #none of the heroes were happy at the thought of abandoning Yokohama #Yokohama didn’t happen because the heroes actually all got together and said ‘fuck those guys let ‘em die’#it was an absolute implosion of the heroics structure that they’d spent their entire careers working on #in my mind there’s a heroics organizational reform bill still making its way through the Japanese government in an attempt to correct the #structural failings that led to Yokohama happening. Aizawa keeps getting calls for his fucking kids to speak to the government about the #issue. and he’s like ‘absolutely not someone will tell them to do a flip and they will do it and cause a public incident’#no one said it out loud but everyone was sort of terrified that one of them would die at Yokohama #you could choke on the fear during the ride over #but they didn’t know what else to do. Yokohama needed heroes and all they had were them #but when you think of Yokohama think of all the big boss fights during bnha #not afo but like. overhaul. now think of fighting a few dozen of him at once. it’s. it’s not great odds.#the idea of just responding alone in the face of that is a nonstarter. and the decentralized nature of the system meant it was borderline #impossible to get the support needed to make a defense feasible. but class 2a had each other. and that was all they needed.#going to Yokohama the next day and it not having been a bloodbath was the biggest relief of those heroes lives #endeavor had never had a good relationship with shouto but he went to him in the hospital after and genuinely thanked him #I have this mental image of Iida. concussed four times over running on fumes and slightly delirious. desperately trying to keep it together #just a little while long. he has a list of the injured who need immediate evacuation. and his classmates. some of them need to be taken to #a hospital immediately. he made a list of their medication allergies. please ensure everyone is taken to the same hospital. he doesn’t think #he could bear it if they were scattered about. and he needs to help coordinate the transports of the villains from where they’ve been #containing them. and one of the Idaten sidekicks is like. Tenya. it’s okay. you did amazing. you can relieve command now. they’ll take it #from here. and he just says. okay. and he sits on the curb and cries. he asks them if one of them could call his brother. he’d. he’d really #like to come home if that’s okay. just for a few days. he just. he wants to go home. like the aftermath of that scene was kind of brutal to #process because on one hand they had all done so amazing but on the other they were so painfully young. a lot of them broke down in the #aftermath. kirishima got embarrassed because he started crying and asked mr Aizawa to call his moms. like once the adrenaline crashed it #all sort of hit them. they had all been so brave but also they were kids and they really really wanted their parents now if that’s alright #they know they’re heroes now and they have to be brave but also can someone please call their mom. please please please they just want their #mom. it was sort of a punch in the face for the full heroes to get there and see just how young these kids were. like these weren’t they’re #colleagues. these were kids who they didn’t protect. it hurt.

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yuseirra · 2 months ago

Text

Analysis and rant(on what was this piece trying to say and all maybe)

Sorry... I keep talking about this because it really weighs on my mind. From a thematic perspective, this manga touches on some incredibly sensitive topics, and while it doesn’t completely shy away from them, it also doesn’t fully address them. This lack of explanation leaves me constantly unsettled and preoccupied with unresolved aspects of the story.

When it comes to understanding the emotional undercurrents of this manga, I was quite confident.

For example, figuring out who Aqua truly loves, what kind of feelings Ai might have had for her boyfriend, and why they broke up—

I had already deduced these things with accuracy even before the story revealed the full details.

I’m very confident when it comes to this sort of analysis!

well, the rest.. I'll cut and place in the read more.

*has analysis of the plot, thoughts on the work and the subjects it touched, some psychological analysis, etc

As for the extent of Ai’s feelings toward her boyfriend, I had to approach this cautiously and conservatively. After all, throughout the story, the protagonist outright accuses him of being her murderer, and others don’t view him favorably either. The allegations against him were so heinous that I couldn’t confidently claim Ai genuinely loved him until the story confirmed it. At a point where Ai seemed to be the victim, it felt only right to tread carefully and analyze the situation with utmost caution before drawing any conclusions.

Still, I came to the tentative conclusion that Ai probably liked him quite a bit. Given that Ai herself admitted she didn’t fully understand love and had never really experienced it, perhaps what she felt didn’t quite reach the level of “love.” But it must have been an emotion close to it—that was the best I could deduce.

And ultimately, before the story revealed what Ai said in the video, why they broke up, and other details, my predictions turned out to be incredibly accurate.

For example, I wrote something like this before CH 154 was introduced:

++ Early on in the series, there’s a key phrase: “Lies are also a form of love.” Do you think this idea of a 15-year lie could have two meanings?

To her fans, she lied by saying she loved them.

To her boyfriend, she lied by saying she couldn’t love him, even though she did have feelings for him.

In this way, Ai told two lies about love.

I ACTUALLY PREDICTED THE CONTENT OF AI'S VIDEO. I couldn't be more correct about it.

Is this something so obvious that anyone could figure it out? I’m not sure... But that’s why I really thought I had a solid grasp of the emotional dynamics in this manga.

So, despite my anxiety toward the latter half of the story, I felt, This seems right, doesn’t it? I even thought that Ai’s boyfriend might not have tried to scare her at all. What if he only intended to send flowers but things spiraled out of control, leaving him in utter despair? I had already started sketching this idea out around chapters 154–155.

Then, as the manga went on, it had so many breaks! I kept thinking, What if next week the story flips, and he turns out to be an irredeemable villain? But the breaks gave me time to reflect and continue drawing. Even with those worries, I couldn’t stop because the details and the song were so intense.

The accusations were truly horrifying. The situation was dreadful. But the two of them seemed to have cared deeply for each other, and I believed that to be true. So I interpreted their relationship in that direction and expressed it a lot in my work—but can you imagine how nerve-wracking and stressful that was?

Even so, I wasn’t completely uncertain about this interpretation.

Even until the end of the story, Kamiki never acts violently or aggressively, not even once. Threatening or intimidating someone stems from aggression, and he simply doesn’t exhibit that kind of behavior. On the contrary, the way he’s portrayed shows he couldn’t even bring himself to take such an attitude, and it caused him immense suffering. There was no narrative reason to depict him that way if it wasn’t true.

Looking at the story as a whole, you could argue that Kamiki was actually written rather consistently. (really, he COULD be.)

But then, the conclusion becomes this:

That for a significant portion of the story, the events surrounding Kamiki didn’t unfold according to his will. He didn't want things to become like this, but things must have still spiraled into disaster. And if that’s the case, how could that even happen?

This person really seems to be a god. The story HAS another god in human form within the work, the related foreshadowing appears, and they say that there isn't just one of such beings! The actions they take are also so deeply significant...

Why don't they just go on and state this out? LOL;; Seriously.

It feels like the story is about this:

A godly couple protecting the entertainment industry—when the wife is murdered, the husband can’t endure it, abandons his virtues, falls from grace, and deserts his duties. He starts reclaiming the blessings (+ the wife’s love) that they had bestowed on the industry, wandering around, only to eventually face retribution for his actions. That’s what I think it’s about.

The gods loved and cherished humanity, granting them protection and various blessings (like the abilities linked to those star-shaped eyes), and they came down to live as humans for once. But both lost their memories, grew up under abuse, and finally met, barely managing to live happily. However, due to the darkness of the entertainment industry or whatever, they were separated again.

To make it worse, the wife had the husband’s child, and under the twisted logic of “how can an idol have a child,” she was murdered. (At that time, the husband was already in bad shape, so the other gods decided the he needed to be replaced, preparing a surrogate candidate as their proxy-Ruby-.)

Witnessing this drove the husband insane, it seems. He went mad, endlessly searching for a way to bring his wife back. Eventually, a divine decree was issued that he must die since he could no longer fulfill his godly duties, leading to his elimination.

From the moment I heard Fatal, I felt like something was up.

This person doesn’t seem like an ordinary human. It feels like some non-human being, unable to live without their loved one, became so consumed by that purpose that they fell from grace.

I’m pretty sure the story is about that.

This manga... It’s incredibly heavy in terms of its themes, with parts that are very hard to watch, yet the creators didn’t seem entirely thoughtless about how they handle it. For example, Kamiki is a victim of child sexual abuse. If the character had been written as falling into being a serial killer or something like that as a direct consequence, I would have been furious. That would be a disrespectful way to use that subject matter. While it’s not entirely impossible for that to happen, writing it so conveniently would show a lack of deep thought about the people in those situations. It’s a theme that shouldn’t be used as the sole reason for someone’s downfall. There were interpretations of Kamiki’s character like that but I'm so thankful this wasn't the case. I'd have dropped this work if that were to be real.

However, In my opinion, sometimes this manga constructs its narrative in ways that allow for such interpretations, which can feel careless. For instance, there was a time when someone directly messaged me saying, “Isn’t it fine for a 15-year-old to have a child?” I'm sorry, but that had me really baffled; I don’t actively seek out other people’s opinions about the works I’m reading, especially with this manga. I feel like doing so would leave me feeling stifled.

Stories have the power to draw people in, but this manga, despite using sensitive themes, doesn’t feel definitive in its stance on them. It tends to gloss over things or just brush past them. While it did handle the issue of child sexual abuse somewhat strongly, I wouldn’t say I was fully satisfied with it. That aspect of the manga is not something I find to be its strength and I feel it can do much, much better while it's not the worst it can ever be.

As for Ai’s death and the theme of teenage pregnancy, I felt like it wasn’t thoughtless, and it reached a level where I could accept it.

Honestly, I wouldn’t have supported Ai’s relationship if her boyfriend hadn’t been younger than her. (I’m fine if they’re the same age.) Ai is petite, and it’s even mentioned that she might have needed a C-section. She had children at such a young age (though the president’s wife helped with childcare, and the kids were reincarnators, so they weren’t very high-maintenance) and endured so much hardship.

If her boyfriend were older than Ai? That would make him an incredibly thoughtless person. He’d have had to take on responsibility for raising the kids (though many do run away or shirk responsibility). From what’s presented in the story, Ai’s boyfriend also seems like someone who had a tough life up until the time they were dating. The two were just very vulnerable, and they both did their best under the circumstances.

They were simply too young. I think they both needed to be at least five years older at the bare minimum for it to have worked in a realistic sense.

Ai had a personality and circumstances that made it plausible for her to shoulder everything herself, thinking she had to solve it because she was the older one. That aspect of her character and situation was portrayed convincingly, showing how events could unfold that way for someone like her.

The issue of Ai’s death... I think it has to be framed as Ryosuke’s problem. The excessive expectations placed on idols and entertainers, as well as twisted fandom culture, are undeniable realities. There are real-life cases of entertainers being murdered like this, or at least becoming targets of stalking and various crimes.

However, if the story made her boyfriend the one who orchestrated it, it would dilute the message about these societal issues. While this manga may not aim to deliver a profound social commentary, making the boyfriend the culprit would serve as an entertainment-driven choice to propel the protagonist’s goals. It’s a narrative choice that could work, but the creators seemed to lean toward depicting it differently at the end, and I thought that’s the right approach.

If there’s a message they want to convey, it’s better for the boyfriend not to be the culprit.

Initially, when Aqua assumed so, I thought, “Is that the case?” because there was no evidence to the contrary. Naturally, the story led me in that direction. At the time, the boyfriend seemed involved in something shady, but there was always no clear indication that he harbored animosity toward Ai. In fact, there were hints of lingering affection, to the point where I wondered if there was at least some mixed emotion, if not just outright love.

For example, he still visited Ai’s grave and spoke tenderly. This suggests either he didn’t harm her, or he’s a complete psychopath. After all, visiting the grave of someone you killed and referring to “our child” while looking at their offspring is bizarre behavior.

He also seemed excessively self-blaming. It was clear he wasn’t normal, but his responses towards Yura's death was strangely peculiar. What was he even saying? At that point in the story, his words were incomprehensible, and even by the end, things still remain ambiguous regarding what he actually meant by all that.

To add, when looking at the past, it seems like Ai was like a savior to him, but in reality, they were each other's saviors. They comforted each other and got along quite well, but there were so many things they couldn’t handle due to their circumstances. Both of them really cared about each other, but it seems they ended up parting ways.

And this person was, if anything, naive and excessively gentle, lacking any sense of aggression. Even while being mistreated, he couldn’t speak up, so Ai protected him, and he relied on her. When you break it down, Ai really cared about him. Her actions were those of someone cherishing a deeply loved person. Although she said some very cruel things when they broke up, would that alone make him so ungrateful as to harm Ai? After their breakup, he didn’t do anything for years. If he had intended to get revenge, wouldn’t he have done so back then? And the idea that he would harm her out of anger for being called to see the children? That makes no sense to me. Given his personality, Isn’t that the kind of situation he would like? Like in chapter 160, where he’s smiling while holding a bouquet—that feels like the most likely scenario, doesn’t it?

If you analyze how the authors portray him, it really doesn’t seem like he’s the culprit. Why would they write the character like this if they want to show him as the one responsible for Ai's murder??

The way he describes or remembers Ai is consistently filled with affection.

Once again, it’s hard to depict someone with such a purely positive impression if they’re the person you’ve harmed. Humans tend to rationalize their actions, convincing themselves that they have a reason to do what they did. If he had done something as horrible as that, he’d find fault with Ai in some way, even if there were lingering mixed feelings. It’s nearly impossible to recall her with nothing but beautiful memories. You could say his memory of Ai was firm and cruel when they parted, but from what I see, that was just objectively showing what happened. And the Ai he remembers is always radiant, smiling alongside him. Even the lighting in those scenes is bright. Furthermore, the impression Ai seemed to have of him was also very positive.

How Ai perceived him is critical to understanding their relationship. If a stalker claimed they were in love with the victim, would that hold any weight? This is why I couldn’t say anything until it was made clear. But now that I’ve seen it, the conclusion is that both held very strong affection for each other and thought highly of one another.

Could he have intended to harm Ai? Could he have tried to scare her because she left him? Judging by his personality, I don’t think so. This person—he wasn’t acting. His naturally gentle and kind personality is likely why Ai liked him.

It seems like he has an ingrained tendency to blame himself. If anything, he seems like someone who’d take responsibility for things that weren’t even his fault.

Moreover, he never blames Ai. He says he loved her so much he’d give up his life for her.

And that doesn’t seem like a lie. When you compare it with how he was in his youth, a faint outline of his character starts to emerge. Then, the content of the song comes to mind.

He keeps talking about offering everything, saying he can’t live without her, that he wants to see her. In a previous song, there were lyrics about how he’d give everything, even his life, if her life could return. At first, I thought it was Aqua’s perspective, but it’s not. Looking closely, both songs are about Kamiki.

Given that he feels this way about Ai and has this kind of backstory, could he have harmed Ai? I feel like the probability is just too low. Rather than finding evidence to support that, the more we learn, the less likely it seems. Why? For what reason? And it seems like people around him keep dying. Each time, he appears genuinely tormented.

Looking at the first instance at least, it seems clear that the event was entirely out of his control.

In Japanese mythology, there’s a couple among the gods of entertainment. The husband of the couple, the god of light, has the ability to guide people’s futures, and he's later replaced by Amaterasu. The wife’s name has been directly mentioned by the protagonist in the story, and the shrine where the characters made their wishes is the place where this divine couple was wed. Together, those gods grant wishes.

So, doesn’t this mean Ai and her partner’s essence is those gods?

That’s how my thought process naturally pieced things together, though it wasn’t intentionally organized step by step—it just clicked. (That’s what I mean by intuition.) That’s when I started thinking, "Is this what the story is about?"

And the husband god drowned.

So, if that’s what this is referencing, then it fits perfectly.

But how are people who don’t know the mythology supposed to grasp this?

Even now, people still don’t understand.

The story doesn’t explicitly establish that this is the case, either.

Seriously, how am I even supposed to interpret this manga? It’s exhausting.

I’m not actively trying to piece it together—my mind just connects the dots, and when I wake up, it all comes to me. I wonder if it’s not the case, but...

People call Kamiki a lunatic and an evil criminal. Well, they’re not entirely wrong. He’s clearly committed many crimes, but that’s also what’s so frustrating. He deserves to be punished, but shouldn’t it be done properly? Shouldn’t we figure out who he really is first? Regarding Ai, maybe he doesn’t deserve the criticism. I can’t speak on something I don’t understand, which is why I’ve been carefully analyzing him. To form an opinion, I need to know the details. But he’s such an ambiguous character. We never fully learn what he was doing, what he was thinking, or his true intentions. He doesn’t express them outright, and even Tsukuyomi? She does tell us about what his motives were but... she speaks so vague and I don't think I can buy it so fully.

If the above backstory is true, wouldn’t that significantly change how we evaluate the character? Based on his personality and when you break down the story as a whole, I genuinely think that interpretation fits.

I can’t let go of this. What kind of manga is this, seriously?

Regarding Aqua again. Honestly, the ending left such a bitter aftertaste!!!;;; And even Aqua’s actions—well, in that kind of situation, it’s like, “Oh, okay… I guess you really had no other choice, with your dad being a corrupted god and all... What else could you have done?”—are understandable to a degree.

But the authors are just so cruel. It’s hard for me to go back and read the earlier volumes because they leave such a bad taste. This is a product for sale, after all. Yet, all the earlier parts where Aqua is running around, helping people, torn between two girls, and just wandering aimlessly… None of that ends up affecting the conclusion. It’s meaningless!;; The story just follows the mythology, so all that messy, dramatic buildup earlier? It wasn’t necessary at all.

Sure, Aqua helped Kana and Akane to some extent, allowing them to continue their careers in the entertainment industry, but from a realistic perspective? To me, the experience of losing someone dear to you in such a way would be far more traumatic and overwhelming—a wound that would scar your life forever. So when those two are shown smiling happily at Ruby in the later chapters, is that even convincing? I don’t know. Maybe if the story had allocated more time to those related episodes, it might have worked better, but they didn’t include that, did they?

In the end, Ruby shone as the new sun god after eliminating the maddened former sun god. < This narrative makes it seem like Aqua was just intruding on the story, like he didn’t need to be there. That's how the myth goes, except for the fact that Sarutahiko never went mad and just drowned on his own. The writers made him grow mad after the loss of his wife and had Aqua drown him, that's the change they brought to that basic outline. He would have drowned ANYWAY. If that’s the case, couldn’t the story have worked just as well without Aqua? Just Ruby, Akane, and Kana navigating the entertainment industry together? I feel bitter even making such an evaluation of the protagonist, but with this ending, I don't feel happy revisiting the story and rereading anything related to Aqua. After all, he's going to die anyway, right?;; As I mentioned in my analysis earlier, the story’s narrative structure revolves around the mythological elements, and everything is decided based on the myth’s progression. Aqua doesn’t really matter. He wasn’t supposed to have a role in the myth—he was an addition, something forced into the framework.

Ruby, Kamiki, Ai, and Tsukuyomi? Those guys are the core elements. If you understood what they were, you could have predicted the ending far in advance, regardless of what Aqua was doing. That’s probably why Kamiki’s true nature wasn’t revealed earlier. If the truth about Ai’s boyfriend had been made clear, you could have known exactly how that character’s story would end.

It feels like I’ve ended up saying so much…

Maybe it’s because I care about this manga? Hmm...;; I think I just see a lot of things here, like potential answers the story didn’t give us. There are so many unresolved, painful emotions lingering, and none of it feels properly addressed. It’s frustrating and exhausting.

How do people who’ve followed this series from the very beginning—buying merchandise and everything—evaluate the ending? I suppose it varies from person to person?;; It's too much though; It would’ve been better if the message, or whatever they were trying to convey, was more definitive. But it’s not. You can’t even say, “Oh, they left it as a mystery on purpose,” because the supernatural elements make it impossible to definitively confirm anything unless the author outright says, “This is what happened.” This isn’t a realm of logical deduction—it’s all up to the author’s intent.

Still, I feel the only way any of this explanation makes sense is if my interpretation is correct. I'm never so entitled but I really can't think of a better explanation. In that case, the author should’ve clarified things.

At least I think I got the emotional beats right??; Who else thought after chapter 154 that the context of chapter 160 would come back again? I don’t think many people did. But if you consider Kamiki’s characterization, this should be it. It makes sense that this would happen!; But if that’s the case, it immediately invalidates everything Aqua has done so far. I think that's why they had him rebut him swiftly. What's the point of including those if what Kamiki said isn't the truth? Why include those scenes then? I say Kamiki's stated the truth right there, the lie about it would that he now does intend to hurt people to some extent in order to get Ai back. Since he's given up being kind after what's happened.

And Kamiki—he was 19 at the time. Did him showing Ryosuke a toothbrush really provoke him to kill Ai? That’s more about how terrible Ryosuke was. Do you think Kamiki explicitly told him to go kill or harm Ai? He definitely wouldn't have. If he had, Nino would’ve said so—she would’ve told on it. Why wouldn’t she? What probably happened is that Kamiki’s ability to “guide” people (michihiraki) twisted and drove others in evil directions. It didn’t suddenly make them bad people either; it just amplified their darker tendencies.

Honestly, I can’t stop thinking about this character. Based on the accusations against him, it makes it hard to believe he was a good person… but I can’t shake the feeling that he’s been misjudged. It’s like when someone in prison for a heinous crime still seems suspiciously innocent. That bothers me a lot, you know, so I keep bringing it up because it feels unjust.

I never believed he was completely innocent of course, but…

Even until the very end!!!;;; They left things so ambiguous.

Still, one thing is certain: he genuinely loved Ai and couldn’t live without her. Looking at his backstory, it makes sense why he is so, but there seems to be a deeper, external narrative at play here. It feels like he’s on the level of a husband god who can’t live without his wife. Why else would the Aratate Shrine show up? Why did he listen to Ruby’s wish? He’s that god—the god of light! That’s why the white star shone too!

Wasn’t it Ai and Kamiki together who granted Ruby’s wish in 147? That’s why it came true. The white star must be Ai. She became a star! How can a regular person become a star? Ai is Ame-no-Uzume! She returned to the heavens, while Kamiki, being an earthly god, couldn’t follow her. That’s why, like in the Mephisto song, he kept wishing upon the stars and striving to be with her. He was desperate. Collecting Ai’s light? It was all out of desperation.

If only the story had explained this clearly, it would’ve made so much more sense.

And if he’s a god, it’s understandable that he might grow disillusioned after protecting humans all this time. It’s not like he handled it well. But in the life he lived as a human, aside from Ai, he didn’t have a single good relationship; he was probably an incredibly benevolent god who ended up falling into corruption.

It’s such an exhausting manga.

If nothing stood out to me, maybe I could’ve just moved on. But because it’s all so vague, it lingers in my mind.

I once said before I wished I could feel nothing about this because it's painful, and it would’ve been easier. Once I finish what I’m working on, I just want to let go. No matter what comes next—whether there’s a third season—I won’t care. I’m not watching season 3. Why would I, after an ending like this? I don’t want to watch Aqua die. Even if I like Kamiki and Ai a lot, and the movie arc is actually my favorite, watching it would just be painful.

I also don’t trust the authors to handle the characters properly anymore. If this is how the story ends, they’ll likely turn Kamiki into some irredeemably evil villain for the sake of convenience in anime S3 because that's what's easier for the audience to handle and understand. And I’d hate that. They'll never explain this character in depth. They didn't do it in the source material, it's far too late to do that anytime now.

I have no expectations anymore. Do you think there’s any reason to hope for something good? It’ll just be painful.

I don’t usually speak this way about a work, but I guess I'm really disappointed. To have a fan this dedicated to feel this way, haha...

well, the authors can do what they want, I have my feelings too. If only they explain things!!!;;; but now, I don't want to care, I keep preparing for the worst to come, I don't want to be disappointed anymore, so I hope I lose my expectations and even some degree of my love for it so that it doesn't affect me as much. And that's a lot to say.. for me to wish to say I want to lose my feelings for something. I felt terrible reading the ending though and I don't want to feel that way again. That's what I get for having read this manga, huh. Maybe I only want the love to last but you can't have both...that's impossible.

it really hurts to love something sometimes, I don't want to think I loved the wrong thing, and I learned a lot from it, but it's sad I couldn't be as happy about it as I thought it would.

#oshi no ko #oshi no ko spoilers #oshi no theories #hikaai #hikaru kamiki #ai hoshino #it's amazing how I can keep writing a wad of things in regard to this manga #I wish it could have been all positive #anyhow.. I think it trained me on reading things...maybe.#aqua hoshino #they did you so dirty aqua... you were my fav for quite a while before the last arc came along #the last arc did you so dirty #spoilers #I say many negative things about him but that's not because I hate him-I don't like how he was handled and functioned in the end. that's wh #I really want to stop thinking about this work and just draw cute and maybe sometimes angst hikaai stuff #my brain keeps running tho so I have to let it run and empty it out like a trash can so it stops. that's what I'm doing rn

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